The present invention relates to food or beverage which contains fucoidan and has an excellent physiological effect as well.
Fucoidan is a polysaccharide containing sulfated fucose which is contained in seaweed, trepang, etc. No attempt for researching and developing fucoidan and for positively using it in food and beverage has been known yet.
The object of the present invention is to offer fucoidan-containing materials, and to offer fucoidan-containing food and beverage having a physiological activity which is useful for good health and having an excellent taste.
The present invention will be summarized as follows. The first feature of the present invention relates to food or beverage which contains fucoidan derived from fucoidan-containing substances.
The second feature of the present invention relates to food or beverage which contains fucoidan wherein algins derived from the fricoidan-containing substances are reduced or removed.
The third feature of the present invention relates to apoptosis-inducing food or beverage which contains an effective amount of fucoidan having an apoptosis-inducing ability derived from the fucoidan-containing substances.
The fourth feature of the present invention relates to apoptosis-inducing food or beverage which contains an effective amount of fucoidan having an apoptosis-inducing ability wherein algins derived from the fucoidan-containing substances are reduced or removed.
Incidentally, the term xe2x80x9calginsxe2x80x9d used in this specification stands for alginic acid and its salts and esters as well as degraded products thereof.